Yadav’s white-ball course correction
NEW DELHI: For the second time in as many matches, three balls were all it took for Umesh Yadav to provide KKR the opening breakthrough. If it was CSK’s Ruturaj Gaikwad who edged a wide, tempting outswinger to first slip in KKR’s first game, there was nothing much RCB’s Anuj Rawat could have done to avoid his dismissal on Wednesday. With the ball landing on a good length in that channel of uncertainty just outside Rawat’s off-stump, a bit of extra bounce and movement away from the left-hander ensured the outside edge was found through to wicketkeeper Sheldon Jackson. There was more to come from Yadav. His duel with Virat Kohli lasted all of four balls, but it made for riveting viewing. Yadav was greeted with two exquisite boundaries—one through the covers and the second piercing the gap between square leg and mid-on—before getting one to hold its line in that probing channel and draw Kohli’s outside edge through to Jackson again. It summed up Yadav’s modus operandi—always searching for wickets even if it costs a few boundaries.
Even though KKR couldn’t get across the line on Wednesday, Yadav returned exemplary figures of 2/16 from his four overs. Four days earlier, he had taken 2/20 to be adjudged Player of the Match in KKR’s win over CSK.
You should perhaps come to expect such performances from someone who has played 52 Tests, 75 ODIs and 7 T20Is for India, but it is worth highlighting that Yadav was confined to two matches across the last two IPLs. Through much of his career, Yadav has been pigeonholed as a bowler suited to Tests—his appearances in whites, too, have mostly come in the subcontinent due to India’s enhanced depth in the fast bowling department. But KKR’s first two matches of this IPL illustrate what many of us already knew. That if there is even a tinge of movement available, the 34-year-old will exploit it regardless of the format.
Taking cognisance of Yadav’s strengths, KKR coach Brendon McCullum, whose attacking instincts were the hallmark of his stint as New Zealand captain, seems to have given a clear brief to the India pacer.
“Umesh has been simply outstanding,” McCullum said after their three-wicket loss to RCB. “I was lucky enough to play with Umesh when I was still playing the game. I knew back then how good a bloke he is and how much of a talent he is. Particularly with the new ball if there is any sort of assistance in the air. His brief is to take wickets for us. If he goes for a few runs, we don’t care. We want his mentality to be to attack. In two games already, he has done more than we could have asked for. He is closer to the end of his career than the start, but he is still incredibly fit and very driven.”
What should help Yadav in carrying out his task is the reward for conventional lines and lengths on offer currently across the four venues in Mumbai and Pune. “We see him as a huge asset for us particularly in the early stages of the tournament with the ball swinging and seaming,” McCullum said.
The conditions have certainly helped the seamers. Ask Mohammed Shami, who set up Gujarat Titans’ maiden win by scything through the Lucknow Super Giants top-order with an exhibition of seam bowling that was good enough to belong to his catalogue of great Test spells. KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock and Manish Pandey were all undone in defence as Shami extracted appreciable seam movement from the Wankhede strip.
Like Shami, whose final over on Monday went for 15 runs after an opening spell of 3-0-10-3, Yadav isn’t very effective in the death overs. He tends to spray it around at the end and doesn’t bowl the yorker or employ other variations accurately to keep run-scoring in check, which reflects in his economy rate of 8.44.
That’s why KKR have bowled out Yadav by the 16th and 14th over in the two games so far, relying on others to do the job in the final four overs. As long as Yadav continues to make inroads at the top, though, McCullum and KKR won’t mind. In case we forget, their attack will be further bolstered by the arrival of Australia’s pace spearhead Pat Cummins once the limited-overs series against Pakistan finishes.